Yesterday, I waded into a mass of Tea Party protesters gathered at the front of Colorado's Capitol and completely forgot to brace myself for a "small-scale mimicry of Kristall- nacht" (as New York Times columnist Frank Rich once characterized these events). As it turns out, earlier I happened to peruse a new CBS/New York Times poll detailing the attitudes of Tea Party activists, who, i...

Though I didn't attend, I do have some observations to make. The Tea Party is growing and becoming a stronger political force. It is because of this that the attacks are getting more frequent. Come November, the party that endears them will benefit the most. So go ahead dems, keep up the attacks and you can count on one thing, retirement.

Let democratics attack, infiltrate, and slender the Tea Party movement. The more they do it the stronger they grow. Of course the leftist have to do it, they have no other choice. The Tea Party movement came to be in existence in reaction of the actions and planned actions of this über-socialist White House and his lackeies in the Congress.

Last edited by dungar on April 16th, 2010, 9:29 am, edited 2 times in total.

"Though I didn't attend, I do have some observations to make. The Tea Party is growing and becoming a stronger political force. It is because of this that the attacks are getting more frequent. Come November, the party that endears them will benefit the most. So go ahead dems, keep up the attacks and you can count on one thing, retirement."

If we are to measure a movement by the craziest and most extreme fringe it attracts (whether it's an Obama Supporter on edge or a Tea Party Fanatic), the same must be true for the reciprocal counter-movements. I'll see your educated, sane, and rational supporters, and raise you mine. I'd rather a return to the civil debates where we agree to disagree rather than call each other islamofascists, nazi loving, terrorist supporting, baby killers. Maybe then we could return to the business at hand of running this nation. Or maybe we should all think less of our fellow man. Oh but this would require someone to be the grown up first. Well, a young man can dream I suppose.

All of these Tea Party folks suddenly became alarmed about the size of government when we elected a black man as President. When Bush was President they were facists; with the election of O'Bama, they suddenly discovered libertarianism. The bottom line is having a black man in the White House is driving a lot of folks crazy.

Last year in Denver, there were many more 'infiltrators', wearing ski masks and holding anti-FED signs. At one point, a clean cut, Brooks brother wearing, young man hoisted an anarchist flag (black and green, cut on the diagonal, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_symbolism) and began screaming that he owned all the land. Tea Partiers surrounded him, turned their backs, and began drowning out his screams with the Star Spangled Banner.

This year, one or two suspected infiltrators hoisted black signs, equating the CFR with the CIA and IRS. No ski masks, no anarchists...

On the Huffington Post yesterday, all the Denver videos and photos are from 2009 and clearly labeled. One has to wonder how much the 'infiltrators' manufactured the news in 2009 with hateful signs and extremist rhetoric, baiting the Vets and middle class taxpayers who were there.....

It remains to be seen whether the 2010 pictures will be aired or available online at the Huffington Post or DP or anywhere......

"more reflective of mainstream anxieties than any populist movement in memory and more closely aligned philosophically with the wider electorate than any big city newsroom in America."

No, not really. That is not what the poll said. It said they describe themselves as very conservative and do not believe the GOP is conservative enough. Given that most other polls indicate that the largest percentage of Americans are center-right or center-left and not extreme in their views to either edge of the spectrum then I find your comment foolish at best and an out and out lie more befitting of being on a Fox News affiliate.

This group is not reflective of "mainstream anxieties" as it seems most people these days are worried about not having a job or being in jeopardy of losing their jobs. They are worried about having to work so much uncompensated overtime to just keep their jobs and losing time with their kids. They are worried about the pay cuts they have had to take and the impact to their ability to continue to pay their mortgages. They are worried about being ripped off by Wall Street again. They are worried about whatever pension accounts they have that are now tied to Wall Street and whether they will be stuck subsisting on Social Security alone which they know to be inadequate to their lifestyles. They are worried about whether their children will be able to get jobs when they graduate from high school or college given the extreme unemployment.

Furthermore, the poll indicated their incomes take them beyond the average American so to say they reflect the "middleclass" might be a stretch..... perhaps the upper middle class which is an income range I call comfortable? A class that of course are worried about big gov`t as they use their income less for day-to-day survival. Then too the age of the average Tea Partier is such that they want smaller gov`t but they don`t want to do away with the biggest pieces of said large gov`t, that of Medicare and Social Security..... heck they paid into all their lives they say (and they no doubt did). If they were really into smaller gov`t I would expect them to say just pay me back what I put into the programs and turn them off as I want to be responsible for myself. They are always spouting off about individual responsibility. Oh, what.... that won`t be enough money to pay for medical care or insurance on your own in your old age, and yes that SS lump sum seems like a lot of money but if I live to be eighty I`ll run out. Oh, poor baby. That is what individual responsibility is all about. Oh, and I know all your investments tanked and your savings are not what you thought they would be. Oh well.

Statistically you are correct that most send their kids to public schools. While home schooling by the far left religious is a growing endeavor it is still statistically small so to tout that as something significant in the tea party group is somewhat meaningless.

And of course you have failed to mention those in the crowd with overt racist attitudes. Can`t believe in a crowd that size that they weren`t there. Saw one on television yesterday commenting on coming up with reasons not to like Obama other than his being black.

kylethornhill wrote:All of these Tea Party folks suddenly became alarmed about the size of government when we elected a black man as President. When Bush was President they were facists; with the election of O'Bama, they suddenly discovered libertarianism. The bottom line is having a black man in the White House is driving a lot of folks crazy.

When the mostly white audience in a baseball game see that a black(or white)referee doing stupid, harmful, treacherous things; They will boo. This is the same with your young Nobel Peace Price winner, marxist-liberation theory, community organizer, friend of terrorist, white president. After all he is just as white as black isn't he? White people elected this president, and at that time he was just as black as now, wasn't he? So tell this slenderous thing to your racist democrat friends, they want to believe it. Many in the Tea Party movement voted for this joke of a president, they disillusioned with him since, they are attacking him what he is doing along with his cohorts, not because of his light brown skin. You can try it endlessly but the issue is not racism, but maybe a problem to use it for everything that is not to your liking. It looks that the last refuge of the bums is the mention of racism.

Last edited by dungar on April 16th, 2010, 9:32 am, edited 1 time in total.

dungar wrote:Many in the Tea Party movement voted for this joke of a president, they disillusioned with him since, they are attacking him what he is doing along with his cohorts, not because of his light brown skin. You can try it endlessly but the issue is not racism, but maybe a problem to use it for everything that is not to your liking. It looks that the last refuge of the bums is the mention of racism.

Oh please, are you seriously suggesting that a significant percentage of the Tea Party people voted for Obama? The Tea Party isnt anything but a bunch of Republicans with new hats and the same old tune. Come November these people are going to line right up to try and vote in another cadre of the the same old GOP, the same old group that are directly responsible for so many of the problems we are dealing with today. Maybe if you the Tea Party actually started supporting some independent candidates; but lets wait and see. Come November their GOP masters are going to tell them that they can either vote Republican or continue to vote for the Communofascist terrorist loving grandma killing Democrats. Watch how quickly the Tea Party hops to their true masters.

Thank you for dispelling the myths and exposing the lies by the left. The left badly wants to discredit this movement and is therefore engaging in "the theory of the Big Lie;" if the lies are big enough and if they are repeated enough the left hopes they will stick and will change the outcome.

Yet another article about Tea Party folks that doesn't mention one specific thing they believe in, aside from a vague goal of "shrinking government" - and they don't give any specifics on how to do that, either.

Seems to me a lot of these folks are angry for the sake of being angry. I get the anger, but what I don't get is the complete absence of any specific steps they recommend to deal with the issues they're so angry about.

Said it before and I'll say it again: if these guys want to be taken seriously, they need to focus on solutions, not criticism. Otherwise, they'll just burn themselves out (as Ross Perot's followers did).

At the Tea Party rally in DC yesterday, Kelly O'Donnel interviewed Darryl Postell.

In an exchange for her NBC Nightly News story, O'Donnell said to Darryl Postell, “There aren't a lot of African-American men at these events,” He just laughed and said, "Right." But then O'Donnell, showed her prejudiced assumptions: “Have you ever felt uncomfortable?”

Postell said, “No, no, these are my people, Americans.”

It's like someone at the Gay Patriot blog who wrote, "...I feel better coming out gay here today with the tea party people then coming out conservative in my gay community."

It occurs to me that while the Republicans have been totally inept is disputing the big lefty lie that conservatives are racist, sexist, homophobes, the Tea Party people are doing a much better job. No matter how many times the left/the press says it, it's just not true. Mainstream Americans are not a bunch of bigots and the U.S. is not as the First Lady described, "a downright mean country." The Tea Party people are leading by example, peaceful, patriotic, decent people by the thousands.

We don't need to talk about race all the time, we just need to be inclusive. The Tea Parties lead the way.

FreedMike wrote:Yet another article about Tea Party folks that doesn't mention one specific thing they believe in, aside from a vague goal of "shrinking government" - and they don't give any specifics on how to do that, either.

Seems to me a lot of these folks are angry for the sake of being angry. I get the anger, but what I don't get is the complete absence of any specific steps they recommend to deal with the issues they're so angry about.

Said it before and I'll say it again: if these guys want to be taken seriously, they need to focus on solutions, not criticism. Otherwise, they'll just burn themselves out (as Ross Perot's followers did).

Is that an accurate characterization of where the Tea Party position stands at this point? That sounds like just a re-positioning of long-standing Republican politics, the promise of tax cuts and smaller government, without any specifics about where savings and cuts will really come from.

My first experience with third-party politics was with Perot, and I remember where that went.

“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present.....We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.” - Abraham Lincoln, annual message to Congress, December 1, 1862